Donald Trump has resumed his attacks on Ron DeSantis after new polls showed him ahead of the Florida Governor - despite being charged with dozens of crimes this week.
The former president posted that his “[p]olls are looking GREAT!” and added that he hoped “Republican LEADERS are watching this”, on his social media site, Truth Social on Saturday.
“Also, winning BIG against “Hopeless” Joe Biden - Hence the Democrats are rolling out their Fake Prosecutors,” Mr Trump posted.
In the post, Mr Trump cited poll results which put him at 61 per cent in a hypothetical GOP primary matchup against Mr DeSantis, who was supposedly at 19 per cent in the same survey. However, it wasn’t immediately clear to which specific poll to which the former president was referring, and whether it included other announced Republican candidates like former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday revealed that Mr Trump has 58 per cent support among likely GOP primary voters while Mr DeSantis (who has not announced his candidacy) has 21 per cent.
That gap has grown Mr Trump’s criminal indictment. In a previous Reuters/Ipsos poll taken 31 March to 3 April, the former president sat at 48 per cent while Mr DeSantis sat at 19 per cent.
In a separate poll released by Marquette University on 30 March (before Mr Trump’s arrest), the gap between the two Republicans is much smaller. Mr Trump held the support of just 40 per cent of GOP primary voters to Mr DeSantis’s 35 per cent.
It lent some credence to Mr Trump’s claim that GOP voters, especially undecideds, are rallying behind his candidacy in the wake of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to charge him with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Mr Trump has plead not guilty.
Mr DeSantis is largely seen as the only Republican with a real shot at winning the 2024 nomination for president over Mr Trump.
On Sunday, Mr Trump reposted a comment from a supporter on Truth Social which claimed that Gov, DeSantis’s only purpose in the 2024 GOP primary would be to hamstring Mr Trump’s chances in the general election.
“True, was a Paul Ryan disciple who voted to kill Social Security & decimate MediCare,” added Mr Trump.
